The gaming hardware giant, Razer has introduced another gaming smartphone recently namely the ‘Razer Phone 2’.
The new phone comes with a number of improvements and tweaks, it takes everything that was good about the original and brings it up a notch – with the added benefit of not having a notch.
The original Razer Phone was specifically designed for mobile gamers but this year it seems like Razer has decided to make their new phone a little bit more friendly like every other flagship with some gaming features added here and there. We were able to get our hands on this new device so here are our first impressions about it.
Design:
So right out the box, the first thing you will notice is the new glass back. The previous generation used to have this soft touch back sort of like the one on the Nextbit Robin. The shape is still the same, it is a boxy and rectangular device but now thanks to the glass back you get wireless charging. Also, the Razer logo on the back is not just a basic logo, it is a glowing light up logo which can be configured via an app. You can change the color of the logo and can even use it as a notification light.
The camera module is placed right above the logo, it has a dual camera set up this time which we will talk about in a bit. The nub like volume buttons are still on the left and the power/fingerprint scanner can be found on the right. Now the main down point of this phone is that it has these huge bezels at top and bottom which makes the phone looks a bit old but this not all bad as it houses front firing stereo speakers which are must in a gaming phone.
Display:
Moving on to the display which is where this smartphone gets all its attention from. It sports a 5.7 inch 1440 x 2560 IGZO IPS LCD which has a refresh rate of 120 Hz and is the only smartphone to feature such a high refresh rate display. The animations look really good on this phone thanks to this higher refresh rate which is really good for gaming experience but most of the smartphone games as of right now are only limited to 60 FPS max.
Moreover, it can get bright up to 645 nits which is basically double the brightness than the last year’s flagship. But still it is not bright enough compared to other flagships on the market but that’s the trade-off for ultra smooth frame rate. Overall the display looks really good and is really pleasing to look at, it is something that you will have to experience yourself in order to know.
Specifications:
The new phone comes with the latest Snapdragon 845 processor paired up with 8 Gigs of RAM and 64 Gigs of internal storage. There is also a micro SD card slot available for storage expansion up to 1 TB. Also, It is now officially IP67 water certified which is really surprising considering it has those big front firing speakers which are really hard to waterproof in a smartphone but somehow the company managed to do it without compromising on the audio quality.
The major flaw of this device according to me is that it does not feature a headphone jack which is really weird considering it is a gaming device and has those huge bezels. You do get a dongle and USB type C headphones in the box but still, it is better to have a headphone jack option.
The camera setup has been improved greatly, it now has a dual 12 megapixel cameras. The primary one has an aperture of f/1.8 with a wide angle focal length of 25mm, the secondary lens is a telephoto lens for 2X optical zoom and portrait mode. The front camera is of 8 megapixels with an aperture of f/2.0. Overall the camera of this device is nothing special, the photo quality looks fine and it gets the job done for the most part.
The battery life on this device is great thanks to the 4000 mAh battery, it easily lasts a whole day. In my usage, I was able to get 4+ hours of screen on time which included playing two rounds of PUBG.
Software:
The Razer Phone 2 is currently running Android 8.0 Oreo with a light skin on top of it, there are a little bit of green accents tossed in there plus a couple of features particularly for improving the gaming experience and changing your RGB lights present on the back. The device will surely be getting Android 9.0 Pie update someday which is not confirmed yet.
What we think:
The Razer Phone seems like a great device for gaming enthusiasts and for the ones who can not tolerate the top notch at all. It provides top of the line specs which are present in all the high end flagships and still comes at around $800 so it is a pretty great option to pick up if you are not in favor of spending more than $1000 on smartphone and still want to get all the amazing features. Tell us what you think about it in the comments section below.